Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
Anti-democracy protesters have closed Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, going as far as storming the control tower. Some Thai Airways flights have been diverted to the city’s old Don Muang Airport, 45 kilometers away, but airlines across Asia have halted services to the city. The Singaporean government has advised its citizens to avoid Thailand. The protesters want to remove the elected government.
Avic Transport Aircraft Co. is aiming to begin deliveries of its MA700 turboprop airliner, now under development, in 2014. The Chinese company appears to be ahead of Franco-Italian rival ATR, whose proposed 90-seat turboprop is not expected to enter service before 2015, although one engine maker has said it could offer the necessary powerplant in 2013 or 2014. Avic Transport Aircraft is negotiating exclusively with Pratt & Whitney Canada for engines for the aircraft.
Airbus is close to an agreement with Avic’s Harbin Aircraft to set up a joint composite-components plant in China, in an early test of the European company’s policy of avoiding cooperation that promotes Chinese industry as a future competitor.
